“Burke shows again that he’s not just a comic genius, but also a fine dramatic writer and storyteller.” – Booklist. “Prose both scabrous and poetic.” – Publishers Weekly. “Proust meets Chandler over a pint of Guinness.” – Spectator. “Among the most memorable books of the year, of any genre.” – Sunday Times. “A hardboiled delight.” – Guardian. “Imagine Donald Westlake and Richard Stark collaborating on a screwball noir.” – Kirkus Reviews. “A cross between Raymond Chandler and Flann O’Brien.” – John Banville.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Funky Friday’s Freaky-Deak

Yup, it’s the weekly interlude where we do our damnedest to raise irrelevant frippery to an art-form, to wit: Euro Crime’s critics included Brian McGilloway, John Connolly, Ken Bruen, Tana French, Gene Kerrigan and Benjamin Black in their Picks of 2007 … Declan Hughes has a rather spiffy new cover for THE COLOUR OF BLOOD (right) … Pan Macmillan are offering free copies of Julie Parson’s latest I SAW YOU over at their interweb yokeybus … Martin Edwards has a good pontificate on the nature of Benjamin Black-alias-John Banville over at Do You Write Under Your Own Name … The next John Connolly novel after THE REAPERS will be a Parker story (working title: THE LOVERS) which is due in 2009, according to Sons of Spade … Kevin Lavelle won the Over The Hedge ‘New Writer Of The Year Award’ for his short story ‘Bury Me In The Garden’, and the story is available at the Galway Arts Centre interweb thingy … There’s a nice audio sample of Adrian McKinty’s THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD up on Audiobooks Instantly … The much-missed Siobhan Dowd and Derek Landy both turned up on the Publishers’ Weekly Best 15 Kids’ Books for 2007, for A SWIFT PURE CRY and SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT respectively … And finally, we’ve used the vid before on occasion, but we think it’s hilarious and it’s our blog, so there. Cue Bernard Black’s rejection of a publisher’s rejection letter …

Crime Always Pays

The Lost and The Blind

“Burke shows again that he’s not just a comic genius, but also a fine dramatic writer and storyteller.” – Booklist

Absolute Zero Cool

“Among the most memorable books of the year, of any genre, was Declan Burke’s ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL ... a fiendishly dark thriller that evokes the best of Flann O’Brien and Bret Easton Ellis.” - Sunday Times

Books To Die For

“As good a collection of short essays on crime fiction as one is likely to find.” - Washington Post